After being banned from India, PlayerUnknown’s Battleground (PUBG) is preparing to return to the Indian market through a deal with Microsoft, two Tech Crunch sources said. It particularly signed an agreement with Microsoft Azure, the cloud storage service offered by the company.
PUBG Corporation’s parent company Krafton signed an agreement with Microsoft with specific stipulations about hosting Krafton games such as PUBG Mobile.
According to the company, “With privacy concerns and data security being a top priority for Krafton, the company will be working with Microsoft to ensure personal data protection through Azure.” Microsoft currently has data centers across the globe, with three in India.
With this move, PUBG Corporation reportedly informed popular Indian streamers about the return. One source said that the game will be back in the country before the end of 2020.
Tech Crunch anticipates an announcement from the company regarding the India plan. A source also said that the corporation will be launching a marketing campaign during the Diwali festival.
Aside from the anticipated activities of the company, it was also spotted working with various local firms such as Paytm and Airtel in a bid to see the possibility of these firms to publish the mobile game.
In the past, Tencent used to publish the South Korean game, which was banned from India because of data privacy concerns brought by the Chinese publisher. Tencent Cloud formerly hosted PUBG data.
After the incident, PUBG ceased working with Tencent. According to the company, “Protecting user data has always been a top priority and we have always complied with applicable data protection laws and regulations in India.”
It added, “All users’ gameplay information is processed in a transparent manner as disclosed in our privacy policy.”
Aside from using Microsoft Azure’ cloud storage service, Wire19 reported, “Krafton will be working with Microsoft to introduce a verification process to ensure that storage of personally identifiable information of its players follows all appropriate requirements in the territories where Krafton and its subsidiaries operate gaming services.”
Before the ban, PUBG is the most popular game in India with over 50 million monthly active users. It also made significant developments in the country’s esports arena as it aided in the creation of an esports ecosystem and organizations, as well as a cottage industry for streamers.
PUBG Mobile returning to the market could derail plans of developers who wanted to take advantage of its absence.
